Kuwait- 'Women suffer discrimination in rights of housing welfare

(MENAFN- Arab Times) Minister lauds civil societies role in cultural workshop

Dr Jenan Boushehri

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 22: Dr Jenan Boushehri, Minister of State for housing Affairs and State Minister reaffirmed government's spirit in the role of civil societies through its contribution to legislation and shared opinions on the proposals submitted to government, taking into consideration their opinions in discussions held in the parliamentary committees.

Dr Boushehri declared this in a press statement issued on the sidelines of a workshop organized by the Women's Cultural & Social Society concerning the partnership between the government bodies and civil societies in developing women's housing laws and its executive regulations.

He pointed out that her participation is based on keen interest in contributing to discussion sessions organized by women's groups to listen to their views on laws pertaining to the housing of Kuwaiti women. They agreed on referring the outcome of the workshop to the concerned government authority for further studies and deliberations in a bid to adopt its recommendations.

Director General of Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) Engineer Badar Al-Waqiyan and the Director General of Kuwait Credit Bank (KCB) Salah Al-Mudhif attended the workshop alongside several other officials from the Public Authority for Housing Welfare.

In her role, Chairperson of the Women's Cultural & Social Society Lulwa Al-Mulla pointed out that 12 other civil societies have joined the Women's Cultural & Social Society in its demand to amend several laws which deprive women some of their rights, especially in terms of housing welfare for the most affected social layer, such as divorcees, widows, married to non-Kuwaiti, and the unmarried ones.

Al-Mulla announced that she presented a detailed report on legal studies prepared by several Kuwaiti female lawyers to Dr Boushehri and leadership of housing welfare and the credit bank to peruse in order to feel the suffering of Kuwaiti women and to work on finding legal solutions to their problem. Among issues raised at the work-shop concerned inactive laws applying to women, stressing women were awarded houses in the sixties and seventies, but no one has been awarded title deed for the houses to this date.

This issue was brought up by the Chairperson of Kuwaiti Women's without Borders Aliya Al-Duleimi who pointed out that the application of housing welfare stopped in 1983 and the fate of those who applied before that year is yet to be known. She indicated Kuwaiti women suffer from discrimination among their male counterparts, given that they cannot resort to the courts and they do not deserve housing welfare or house allowance, while there are women assigned to cater for the needs of disabled who are barred from housing welfare rights.

Other issues raised included barring the inheritance of the children of Kuwaiti women who are married to non-Kuwaitis, and amending laws that require divorced women to wait for three years before they are able to apply for housing loan from Kuwait Credit Bank. The workshop urged concerned authorities to include women's names in the title deed issued to their spouses to avoid cases where wives are conned by their husbands for the matrimonial housing welfare received from the State.

By Abdul-Nasser Al-Aslami Al-Seyassah Staff

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